WHY NOT ?

Is it really so unbelievable that the u.s. would do something like this ? They've done so much worse in their bloodstained history, and will continue to do so.

Coronavirus COVID-19: “Made in China” or “Made in America”?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, March 14, 2020

Region: Asia, USA

Theme: Global Economy, Intelligence, Media Disinformation, Police State & Civil Rights

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Trump contends that the coronavirus was “Made in China”.  And that China threatens America.

The president of the US wants Americans to believe that the coronavirus pandemic carries the “Made in China” label.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refers to it as the “Wuhan coronavirus.” 

“The Big Lie” started on January 30th when the WHO Director General pressured by powerful US economic interests declared a global public health emergency with only 150 “confirmed cases” (by the WHO) outside China with only six cases in the USA. And it was called a pandemic. 

“Fake media” immediately went into high gear. China was held responsible for “spreading infection” Worldwide.

On the following day (January 31, 2020), Trump announced that he would deny entry to the US of both Chinese and foreign nationals “who have traveled in China in the last 14 days”. This immediately triggered a crisis in air travel,  transportation, US-China business relations as well as freight and shipping transactions.

While the “Made in China” coronavirus label served as a pretext, the unspoken objective was to bring the Chinese economy to its knees.

It was an act of “economic warfare”, which has contributed to undermining both China’s  economy as well as that of  most Western countries (allies of the US), leading to a wave of bankruptcies, not to mention unemployment, collapse of the tourist industry,  etc.

Moreover, Trump’s “Made in China” coronavirus label almost immediately as of early February triggered a campaign against ethnic Chinese throughout the Western World.

Stage 2.0: “Infections Transmitted by Europeans”? 

On March 11, a new phase was launched. The Trump administration imposed a 30-day ban on Europeans entering the United States through the suspension of air-travel with the EU (with the exception of Britain).

America is now waging its “economic  war” against Western Europe, while using COVID-19 as a justification.

European governments have been co-opted. In Italy a lockdown prevails, ordered by the Prime Minister, large cities in Northern Italy including Milano and Torino have literally closed down.

Confusion, Fear and intimidation prevail.

It’s “Damage Made in America”.

Late February: Financial manipulation characterizes stock market transactions Worldwide.

The stock value of airlines companies collapses overnight. Those who had  “foreknowledge” of Trump’s March 11 decision to ban transatlantic flights from EU countries made a bundle of money. It’s called “short-selling” in the derivative market among other speculative ops. Institutional speculators including hedge funds with “inside info” had already placed their bets.

More generally, a massive transfer of money wealth has occurred, among the largest in World history, leading to countless bankruptcies, not to mention the loss of lifelong savings engineered through the collapse of financial markets.

This process is ongoing. It would be naive to believe that these occurrences are spontaneous, based on market forces. They are deliberate. They are part of a carefully designed plan involving powerful financial interests.

COVID-19: “Made in China” or “Made in America”? 

And now a new bombshell has emerged: The White House rhetoric of accusing China of spreading the “Wuhan virus” Worldwide has been refuted by both Japanese and Chinese reports. Scientific analysis revealed by Larry Romanoff  suggests that the virus was “Made in America”:

“it appears that the virus did not originate in China and, according to reports in Japanese and other media, may have originated in the US.  …

In February, the Japanese Asahi news report (print and TV) claimed the coronavirus originated in the US, not in China, and that some (or many) of the 14,000 American deaths attributed to influenza may have in fact have resulted from the coronavirus.

And on March 12, in a statement to the US Congress (House Oversight Committee), CDC Director Robert Redfield unwittingly “spilled the beans”. He candidly admitted, yes, some cases diagnosed as seasonal flu could have been coronavirus.

When did this occur? In October, November? What is the chronology.  It is worth noting that Redfield’s statement is corroborated by both Japanese and Taiwanese virologists.  Two countries which are staunch allies of the USA.

It is worth noting that the Taiwan virologist (referred to above)

“stated that the US has recently [?] had more than 200 “pulmonary fibrosis” cases that resulted in death due to patients’ inability to breathe, … He said he .. informed the US health authorities to consider seriously those deaths as resulting from the coronavirus, … [He] then stated the virus outbreak may have begun earlier than assumed, suggesting  “We must look to September of 2019”. (quoted in Larry Romanoff, op cit)

China’s Foreign Ministry has reacted to CDC Robert Redfield’s statements intimating that the virus could have originated in the US.

“When Did “Patient Zero” Begin in the US?” said China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian.

Of course “WHEN” is the fundamental question.

“How many people are infected, what are the names of the hospitals, It might be US Army that brought epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent, US owe us an explanation”

See below

The World is at the Crossroads of the Most Serious Social and Economic Crisis in Modern History

People Worldwide are being misled. They are told: “It’s going to get worse”. Angela Merkel has stated without a shred of evidence that “70% of the German population could contract coronavirus if more isn’t done to stop its spread.”

In several countries, the economy has closed down. Supermarkets, shopping malls, offices, factories, schools, universities are at a standstill. People are confined to their homes. Fear and intimidation prevail.

In the meantime, coinciding with the coronavirus lockdown in Italy, 30,000 US troops have been dispatched to the EU, under US-NATO’s  “Defend Europe 2020” war games against Russia, in the largest military deployment since World War II. “Could the Defender become the Invader…?”

Let’s be clear: The coronavirus pandemic is not the “cause” of this unfolding economic and social crisis. It is the “pretext” for the implementation of a carefully designed “operation” (supported by media disinformation) which destabilizes national economies, impoverishes large sectors of the World population and literally undermines the lives of millions of people. What we are dealing with is “An Act of War”.

While COVID-19 is an important Public Health concern, the lockdown coupled with an ongoing fear campaign does not constitute an effective means to combating the virus, i.e. by providing target medical assistance and health services to those affected.

---

For further details see:

COVID-19 Coronavirus “Fake” Pandemic: Timeline and Analysis 

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 08, 2020

---

What Happens Next: The Potential Impacts of a Continued Freeze of US Trade with China

The geopolitics are complex. How will economic events unfold? We will essentially focus briefly on US-China relations.

Those who formulated America’s “undeclared economic war” against China, failed to envisage the potential backlash on the US economy.

It’s an “Economic Harakiri” i.e. “Suicide American Style”

In a matter of  months, if normal US-China trade relations and transportation are not resumed, the impacts on the national economies of Western countries could be devastating.

A large share of goods displayed in America’s shopping malls, including major brands are  “Made in China”.

“Made in China” is the backbone of retail trade in the USA which indelibly sustains household consumption in virtually all major commodity categories from clothing, footwear, hardware, electronics, toys, jewellery, household fixtures, medical supplies, medicine and prescription drugs,,  TV sets, cell phones, etc.

“Made in China” also dominates the production of a wide range of industrial inputs, advanced technology, machinery, building materials, automotive, parts and accessories, etc. not to mention the extensive sub-contracting of Chinese companies on behalf of US conglomerates.

While the US has a powerful and sophisticated financial apparatus (which has the ability to manipulate trade and stock markets Worldwide), America’s Real Economy is in a shambles.

Production does not take place in the USA. The producers have given up production.

The US trade deficit with China is instrumental in fuelling the profit driven consumer economy which relies on “Made in China” consumer goods. Meanwhile China holds a large part of the US public debt which they can readily convert into real assets overnight.

www.Made-In-China.com

At this juncture of the coronavirus crisis, Beijing policy makers are fully aware that the US economy is fragile and heavily dependent on “Made in China”.  Moreover, China has overtaken the US in several high tech areas including 5G.

And with an internal market of 1.4 billion people, coupled with a global export market under the “Belt and Road” initiative, the Chinese economy will have the upper hand.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2020

DESPITE THE HYPE

I know that anything that deviates from the official narrative of the origins of the coronavirus will be dismissed as a conspiracy theory , which is very convenient indeed for the u.s. imperialists . I think that the theory presented in the following article is very plausible indeed.
Read it.

at the original source of the virus was not China, nor Wuhan, nor the seafood market, but had been traced to the US, a possible scenario being that the virus might have originated at the US Military’s bio-weapons lab at Fort Detrick (which was shut down by the CDC in July, because of outbreaks), and brought to China during the World Military Games in October 2019.

Also, Japanese and Taiwanese virologists arrived independently at the conclusion that the virus could have originated in the US.

The Americans did their best from before the beginning to deflect culpability by crafting tales of bats, snakes, pangolins, the seafood market, the Wuhan University being a bio-weapons facility (which it is not), and the CIA tale leaked through the VOA and Radio Free Asia that the virus leaked from that university. They stated (factually) that Chinese researchers had participated (7 years ago) in similar virus research funded by the US NIH, thus somehow insinuating Chinese culpability, ignoring that the prior research was irrelevant to current events.

I must say the Americans have proven to be very skillful in grabbing the microphone first, to create an “official” narrative of a current event while flooding the media with sufficient finger-pointing to preclude a gullible public the time to logically assemble the pieces on their own.

They ignored the very real fact that few nations would either create or release a biological weapon that attacks primarily itself. They ignored too, the geopolitical likelihood of an ”end game” – that a virus is a powerful weapon of economic warfare, able to do to China’s economy what a trade war could not do.

Casual readers tend to ignore the fact that, in the American mentality, there are many solid geopolitical reasons to attack China, Iran, and Italy, the remaining countries merely constituting unfortunate collateral damage.

Many virus articles containing this and similar information had been published by second-tier internet news sites, some articles gaining enormous readership with hundreds of thousands of downloads and much re-posting. Many of these articles have been translated into 6 or 7 languages and published on websites all around the world. Simultaneously, many posts were made on Chinese social media speculating on the odd circumstances and long chain of unusual coincidences that led to the virus outbreak in Wuhan.

One of the articles referred to above, was translated and posted on Chinese social media and gathered 76,000 comments in the first 8 hours. Eventually, the major Chinese media outlets made the same claims – that the virus could have originated in the US and that the Americans were engaging in a massive cover-up.

China’s Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus Originate in the US?

Then, Zhao LiJian, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, made the story official, through a number of posts on US social media. One major media article, this in the NYT, noted that “Zhao’s remarks were spread on China’s most prominent social media platform, Weibo . . . [and] had been viewed more than 160 million times, along with screenshots of the original Twitter posts.

It seems LiJian’s Twitter posts, being essentially an official source that could not easily be ignored, claiming the virus was brought to China from the US during the Military Games, and demanding an explanation from the US, were receiving too much public attention to be ignored. All of the above created sufficient political pressure to force the Western media to respond. And of course they responded by ignoring the facts of the message and trashing the messenger.

On March 12, the UK Guardian ran a story claiming China was “pushing propaganda” about the virus coming from the US. (1) On March 13, the New York Times ran a similar story of a “China coronavirus conspiracy” of false claims about the source of the virus. (2) Then, on March 14, ABC News ran a story titled “False claims about sources of coronavirus cause spat between the US, China”, in which it ridiculed China and the claims of a US-virus. (3)

The Seattle Times published a version of the story, stating, “China is pushing a new theory about the origins of the coronavirus: It is an American disease . . . introduced by members of the U.S. Army who visited Wuhan in October. There is not a shred of evidence to support that, but the notion received an official endorsement from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose spokesman accused American officials of not coming clean about what they know about the disease.” (4) The UK Independent published their own version of “China’s conspiracy theory” (5), as did CNN (6).

The ABC article claimed that “Assistant Secretary David Stilwell gave [Chinese] Ambassador Cui Tiankai a “very stern representation of the facts,” claiming Cui was “very defensive” in the face of this “official” American assault. The US State Department is quoted as having said, “We wanted to put the [Chinese] government on notice we won’t tolerate [conspiracy theories] for the good of the Chinese people and the world.”

Following that, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, and half a dozen other press wires and media outlets have contacted this author for interviews, eager for an opportunity to trash this ‘conspiracy theory’ at its source. The US Embassy in Beijing also “reached out” to the author “to talk about it”.

If the public information campaign and the resulting political pressure can continue, we will eventually enter stage three where the media will begin admitting first the possibility, then the likelihood, then the fact, of the US being the source of the “China” virus.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

A DIFFERENT TAKE

Things are never as straightforward as they seem.

Communique #1 from the Revcoms:

Real Truth on the Coronavirus: What It Is and How to Confront It

March 16, 2020 | revcom.us

There is a lot of confusion about the coronavirus. There is misleading information coming from people in power, especially Trump. Yet this will be a life-and-death question for tens of thousands of people, and very likely more. This is a novel (new) virus for which there is currently no cure, vaccine and immunity, and the World Health Organization has declared it a pandemic—which means it is all over the world.

So getting to the truth on this is urgent.

What Is the Coronavirus That Causes COVID-19? How Dangerous Is This Virus?

Most researchers currently believe it came from a virus found in animals that “jumped” to humans. This is a common way that new diseases arise in humans. The first known cases, and where it initially rapidly spread was in Wuhan, China.

The virus is highly contagious, i.e., spreads very easily from an infected person to others, even if the ill person is not showing symptoms. It gets spread through contact with people who have it, through surfaces they have touched or sneezed on, and in other ways.

For most, this illness may be relatively mild—though they can still be infectious and spread to others. But for some people, the virus can cause death or do real harm—especially, but not only, to older people and those who are immune-compromised and with existing respiratory (breathing) illnesses. Those severely ill will need oxygen, ventilators and hospitalization. This will strain existing capacity and incur great expense under this system. Rates of mortality—those who actually die—are very high among those severely ill or hospitalized, in ranges of 10-20% depending on quality of health care. This might not seem like much. When you multiply this out by the tens of millions worldwide who could possibly get sick if the virus is not contained, this poses a great danger—and deaths in the tens or hundreds of thousands to possibly millions in a short time. We are at just the beginning of this pandemic.

Because this virus is potentially so dangerous and so catchable, almost every society is taking measures to limit its spread. In the U.S., cities and businesses are cancelling conferences and basketball games, and sending students home from school. It is important to take action and much of what is being done makes sense.

A Natural Disaster in a System of Savage Inequalities

But what priorities are set and how they impact different sections of people are determined by the system people live under, and what serves that system. In the U.S., we all live under a system built on and full of “savage inequalities.” That system has a name: capitalism-imperialism. Its economy is based on ruthless exploitation and dog-eat-dog competition among the capitalists themselves. The system maintains its power through massive machinery of repression, and through misleading and dividing people. The outlook it drums into people—and requires—is “look out for number one.” Because of all this, rotten health care for the masses is a major problem in this society. And all this plays out in really ugly ways when there is a disaster in society.

To be clear, this virus will reach every corner of society. At the same time, it will almost certainly hit some harder than others. It will hit the elderly everywhere. And when you look at this country, you can almost be sure that this will come down especially hard on Black people and Latinos and Native American Indians... the immigrants... the millions in prison... the millions more who live on the streets and the shelters, or in their cars... the poor and all those who live paycheck to paycheck...

And you can also guess that as this disease hits those parts of the world—Africa, Asia and Latin America—that these imperialists have plundered and held down for centuries, the imperialists will only give them the most pitiful aid, if they give them any at all. What kind of society is this?

Trump and Pence Are Making This Even Worse

Right now, the fascists who are in power—Trump, Pence and the others—are making this even worse. They suppressed and denied the science on this for months, claiming it was a hoax against Trump. They are using it to further whip up hatred against people in other countries—such as Trump saying this is a “foreign” virus. For weeks they have refused to widely test people and only under massive pressure began to promise that they would.

Meanwhile, as the disease spreads, we may face an acute shortage of hospitals and needed medical equipment, a shortage of medical professionals and health workers, and so on. It is very possible that the Trump/Pence regime will use these hardships and the fear that people have of the disease to unleash even more hatred and repression against immigrants, the homeless, and their other targets. We must be prepared to stand with those who fight for decent care and defend our brothers and sisters.

Things Don’t Have to Be This Way

But ask yourself this: Why can’t we have a society in which production was organized to meet the needs of the people? Why can’t we live in a system which moves to break down and heal the scars of oppression for real, instead of reinforcing them, whether openly or through deception? Why can’t we live in a world in which the divisions between people all over the world were being broken down and overcome and we move to a world community of human beings? A world in which natural disasters were times for people to pull together, where the new revolutionary power worked to involve everyone in understanding the problem and figuring out together how to overcome it?

We could. But there needs to be an ACTUAL revolution—overthrowing this system and replacing it with a radically different and far better system and society—for that to happen.

We—the Revolution Club and the National Tour To Get Organized For An ACTUAL Revolution—are about making a revolution, at the soonest possible time. We can do this—there is the leadership for this in Bob Avakian, there is the strategy he’s developed to overcome this system and sweep it away, and there is the blueprint and vision for a whole new society—the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, that Bob Avakian authored.

We are getting out this communiqué as one part of preparing for that revolution. Help get this out to others… let us know what comes up when you do and what needs to be investigated and spoken to… be part of this movement. And learn more about this movement for an actual revolution at www.revcom.us.

Download and print PDF

For more about the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour click here

Model of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease.

THREE NIGHTS

I suppose it could have been a lot worse.
We set off with The Dayglo's and BLKR and played Lucky Bar last Thursday , The Cambie in Nanaimo on Friday , and then Pat's Pub in Vancouver on Saturday . Despite the fearmongering about the plague killing us all, the turnouts were not bad .
The Dayglo's showed why they are Victoria legends, BLKR are a fucking powerhouse in their own right ( expect great things from them ), and we did our thing also . Thursday night's show also featured recent transplants Mass Distraction , and they tore shit up in their crusty political style . Fuck yeah .
We had a great time , and Jay from BLKR set the entire thing up . We are grateful .Sorry for the delay in posting this , but it took a little while to recover .

FUCK YEAH

Last night's show at Lucky Bar was fucking awesome .
Mass Distraction ripped up the place with their politically charged crust influenced set , followed by BLKR's furious punk rock assault , then us, and The Dayglo's smashed us with hit after hit until the place shut down .
It was a great fucking night , and if you missed it because you're scared of that fucking virus, you missed out .
Tonight Nanaimo . See you there, assholes.

COME OUT TONIGHT

Hey assholes,
Come out to this show tonight. If not for us, then BLKR ( featuring former members of AWT ) , and The Dayglo Abortions .
What the fuck else are you doing on a Thursday night ?

MORE AMERIKKKAN PIG RACISM

The united states of amerikkka has been a racist entity since it's founding, and continues to be to this day . Entire generations of minority youth are criminalized simply for existing .

Their "gang databases" are nothing but hit lists.
Fuck the u.s.a. and it's enforcers.

Targeting Our Children? A dubious gang database and demands for an end to targeting Black, Latino youth

BY RICHARD B. MUHAMMAD AND CHARLENE MUHAMMAD THE FINAL CALL NEWSPAPER @THEFINALCALL | LAST UPDATED: JAN 21, 2020 - 10:03:57 AM

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What's your opinion on this article?

LOS ANGELES—When a mother got a letter from police saying her son was in a gang and was being included in a gangbanger database, she knew something was wrong.

Her son had no gang affiliation. 

Now, after months of investigation, 20 Los Angeles officers are under investigation into wrongly entering youngsters into a major gang database. Field interview cards, which cops use when talking to people, may have been filled out wrong and tagged youth as gangbangers who aren’t.

Probes, promises and police violations?

The investigation and police chief Michel Moore’s promises to deal with any misconduct rekindled anger and suspicion about how officers target Black and Latino youth and dump them into the criminal justice system.

Blacks say such police behavior goes back as far as the 1980s with misuse of so-called gang databases. Entry into the gang database can be done if the youngster hasn’t committed a crime or openly declared a gang connection. Officers may catalogue young people based on clothing, tattoos, geography, acquaintances or other dubious reasons, said activists. 

The mother in the San Fernando Valley who challenged how her son was labeled and complained to a supervisor last year opened the door and larger problems loom. In her son’s case, body cam footage didn’t jibe with the field report. 

Her son was removed from the database but trouble continues for the Los Angeles Police Department, which has a long history of misconduct, violence and has been trying to rehabilitate its image.

Some aren’t convinced or impressed.

It took two months for Demetra Johnson to get her then-16-year-old son Kevin removed from the California gang database. “We called down and told them that that was impossible,” she said. “They said we had to show written proof. We had to produce school records. We even informed them that at that point, he had graduated from the L.A. Police Academy Cadet Corps.” 

The cadet corps is like an official junior police program run by LAPD. 

“That wasn’t enough! They sent a response saying that we need to bring him into the station and show that he didn’t have any tattoos,” said Ms. Johnson.  

Seeing no tattoos, Kevin was finally removed from the database, she said. But that experience and the death of his brother at the hands of Los Angeles County Sheriffs soured Kevin, who joined the military, she said. 

“At the time I feel like I lost both my boys. One left to go to join the service and one was taken from me. I still got a 13-year-old here with me, and he’s like a hybrid of them both. He’s doing well as can be expected,” Ms. Johnson said.

“I think we should really put that in perspective, that we’re talking about the same unit that was proven to be stopping Black people more, proven to be searching Black people more, even though we’re found to have engaged in criminal activity less,” she added.

The gang database trap snared her son Kevin in 2016—again raising fears targeting isn’t new or happenstance.

Chief Moore has promised video from police cams will be regularly reviewed when encounters don’t involve crimes or arrests to detect problems.

In December, LAPD went public about a nine-month-old probe of three officers in the Metropolitan Crime Suppression Van Nuys Division that kicked up the controversy. The LAPD investigation grew to include officers who may have worked with the initial trio. 

The number now includes other officers who could have falsely added names to the database, with some 20 officers under scrutiny for inconsistencies in their reports.

Ten have been reassigned, sent home, suspended or relieved of their peace officer powers pending the investigation outcome. 

Another 10 were put on desk duty because of suspicions or allegations of wrongdoing to protect the officers and public as investigations take place, said Chief Moore.

That’s not enough, many complain.

“This is tyranny! This is suppression! We have to take some responsibility—Black leadership—and we’ve allowed this enemy to pass policies, ordinances, all kinds of crap that is against our cultural expression,” said Abdul Malik Syeed Muhammad, Nation of Islam Western Region student minister based in Los Angeles. He was formerly known as Tony Muhammad.

“All of these kinds of policies come right up out of the Jim Crow laws. Nothing has changed,” he said. 

“We didn’t know this? When Chief Moore reached out for me and explained that he was upset about it and was going to get down the bottom of it, I said to him, ‘Getting down to the bottom of it is eradicating it all together!’ ” said Min. Syeed Muhammad. 

“Where is your gang list of Caucasian children? Are White children being placed in that database, or is it just people of color?” 

The police chief apologized for any actions undermining public trust, vowed to correct current problems and prevent future problems during an annual year end press conference Jan. 15 at LAPD headquarters. 

Later members of the Southern California Cease Fire Committee, a coalition of gang interventionists, mothers of murdered children, and other grassroots activists who promote peace on the streets, questioned Chief Moore on his plans. They expressed concern about the continued criminalization of youth. They also offered solutions. 

Community members across the board, from youth to activists to faith-based leaders and legal experts, said the LAPD’s own admissions confirm what they have complained about and fought against for decades: Police have been fabricating information with no factual basis whatsoever, they said.

Davey D, hip hop journalist and activist, took the problem back to “Operation Hammer” during infamous LAPD Chief Daryl Gates’ war on gangs. He waged war through mass arrests, SWAT raids, and mandatory curfews.  

His initiative started in April 1987 under C.R.A.S.H. (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums), a specialized unit of Rampart Division officers trained to combat gang-related crime from 1979 to 2000. The C.R.A.S.H. unit was disbanded after the notorious 1990s “Rampart Scandal.” It involved widespread corruption within C.R.A.S.H. Approximately 140 settlements in civil suits cost the city of Los Angeles over $125 million.

“The gang database or the concept behind it has always been used as a weapon by the police against the community, and it was most glaring in the late ’80s under Operation Hammer, when Daryl Gates was around,” said Davey D.

“In this case, in L.A., them doing this first of all, one would have thought that they would have learned the lessons from Rodney King,” said Davey D regarding widespread protests after a predominantly White jury in Simi Valley, then a predominantly White suburb of Los Angeles, acquitted officers who mob-style brutalized the Black motorist during a 1991 traffic stop.

“I think by the time you have the Rodney King uprising, you had damned near half of L.A.’s Black male population under a certain age that were put into the gang database. Now that should have just been alarming unto itself, but here we are 25, 30 years later, and this is still happening, with no consequences,” Davey D told The Final Call. 

If cops are being placed on desk duty but not charged with falsifying information, that’s cause for concern, he added.

A faulty system with documented problems

A 2016 California State Audit found the CalGang Criminal Intelligence System’s weak oversight structure does not ensure law enforcement agencies collect and maintain data in a manner that preserves individual privacy rights.

In “Tracked and Trapped—Youth of Color, Gang Databases and Gang Injunctions,” preliminary research found most people were added to the gang database without having been arrested or accused of criminal conduct. 

Gang officers in neighborhoods and school districts could question anyone, starting in elementary school, about nicknames, family members, friends and where they hung out or lived, according to the first comprehensive report about how CalGang impacted communities and youth.

People had no way of knowing or opportunity to appeal, the report added.

Advocates, including the Youth Justice Coalition and Black Lives Matter, sent letters of recommendation and demands for reforms and eradication of the gang database to California Attorney General Javier Becerra.

LAPD is working with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office to determine if there was criminal wrongdoing by the first three officers in the initial probe, and similar conversations regarding other officers they worked with have begun, according to Chief Moore. 

Chief Moore expects to make a decision in about a month after the investigation is complete.

Cops who made a mistake will be disciplined and retrained, both those who lied stand to face harsher penalties like termination, said police officials.

Gang database never helped increase peace

Ansar Muhammad, co-founder of the gang intervention H.E.L.P.E.R. (Help Establish Learning Peace Economics and Righteousness) Foundation, never found the gang database useful. The falsification of data hurt the work of peacekeepers on the streets, he said.

“There was never any community input. It was always law enforcement-driven, but if community folks were in the conversation, then maybe yeah, it’s okay. But the community was never involved in that decision-making process,” said Ansar Muhammad, who is also a coordinator of the Nation of Islam Study Group in Lancaster, Calif.

Half of Black men were put in the gang database

CalGang began as a way to simplify the process of storing and sharing street gang data. 

Each law enforcement agency had its own way of gathering and filing such data, and not all agencies used the system, because it was not mandated. 

LAPD started a database too, according to Sean Garcia-Leys, senior staff attorney for the Urban Peace Institute. The District Attorney’s Office assessed the programs, made them combine the systems into one countywide network it could access, he recalled.

“That’s the study that found that 50 percent of all young Black men in Los Angeles had been put on one of those two databases as gang members,” Atty. Garcia-Leys told The Final Call. “It is a shocking number.”

Placement in the database is like having a scarlet letter. It prevents people from getting jobs if cases go to court and the information is made public, activists said. In addition, people in the database can face tougher laws, called gang enhancements, and greater scrutiny from police for minor offenses or when innocent.

But, some activists added, the system is doing what it was created to do.

“They literally see Black people with targets on our backs, and that’s what the data is showing here. There’s a history that we can actually go back, not just to the ’80s and ’90s, but we can go all the way back to the 19th century, 18th century even and look at who they were as slavecatchers,” said Dr. Melina Abdullah, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and professor of Pan African Studies at California State University Los Angeles. 

The remedy isn’t a kinder, gentler police, but community responses to police, activists said.

Black Lives Matter and community partners want Chief Moore to disband the Metro Division, release all names of the suspect officers, and then put the cops on  a do not call list to prevent city and district attorneys from using corrupt officers as witnesses in cases.

All charges should be dropped against those prosecuted as a result of arrests by the officers accused of corruption; the officers prosecuted; there should be the immediate release of those incarcerated as a result of the officers’ corrupt practices, and their convictions overturned, said activists.

“And then, finally, we want the mayor of Los Angeles, Mayor Garcetti, to establish and fund what we’re calling a Reparations Unit, because what they’ve been doing in South Los Angeles causes harm—not only to those who were arrested, those who were criminalized as a result of these corrupt practices—but to the entire community, so we want remedies for those individuals. But we also want the rest of the community to receive remedies and not thorough the police. We need more resources in South L.A., not more police,” Dr. Abdullah said.

A prophetic voice and warning about the war on Black youth

While activists and advocates have worked on the problem of police misconduct and targeting of the Black community, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan has provided a prophetic warning about the plans of the U.S. government to go to war against a small Islamic nation, Black people and Black youth in particular.

His warning began following a 1985 vision-like experience in Mexico, involving the “Wheels” prophesized in Ezekiel in the bible and commonly called UFOs by this world with a message from the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad that the president and his Joint Chiefs of Staff had met to plan a war. Initially, he understood the war to be with Libya, which was bombed by the U.S. in 1986. Min. Farrakhan warned Libyan officials of the bombing before it took place. But as the vision unfolded, it was clear the war was a domestic war against the budding Nation of Islam, Black people and an assault on Black youth under the guise of a war on drugs and gangs.

While the California gang database is an important example of this assault on Black youth, the federal government recently announced targeting of several cities, Attorney General William Barr has warned communities who don’t respect police could find themselves without protection and the president has recommended being less gentle during arrests of suspects.

“I have been among you a long time, and I have not failed in warning you of what the government of the United States of America has been planning against Black people generally, but Black youth, in particular, and the Nation of Islam,” said the Minister in a special November, 2017 message directed to President Trump from the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.

“We’re at the end of it now: the plan is genocide and to kill you all. I’m going to drop it in the president’s lap, because he is the last one,” said Min. Farrakhan.

“We went from a small prison population, and the Clinton crime bill was directly against Black people. … Once we are called a ‘felon,’ they knew we couldn’t vote anymore. They were killing us at the voting booth by putting us in prison—and it all was a plot,” he continued.

“Mr. Trump: The consequences of America’s evils over time have fallen in your lap. …  And they know they have a genocidal plot against all Black America … . Now, I have delivered a message, and a warning, Mr. Trump; because I don’t have an armada—I come to you, no army, no navy. These brothers that are around me, they don’t carry any weapons. We are forbidden to carry weapons; we are forbidden to store weapons in our home. So if you want to kill us, we are here: I’m not running from you, I’m running to you.